Closing Time
by Cairistona
Summary: One-shot. An abandoned lonely little femme is sad & wishes for a better life, one with a family. Contemplations as she leaves the pub & heads to her "home" and Prime's message help her find the courage to leave Cybertron and join the other Bots on earth.


This is just a one-shot. Most of it is sad, but it's got a positive ending, so it will be okay.

I originally wrote it as a song-fic. The song was "Closing Time," and it belongs to the group called "Semisonic."

Anyways… Ari is an OC of mine. Some of you may already know her, but under her earth name, which is similar. ;)

Hope you like it!

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><p><strong>Closing Time<strong>

Ari huddled in a corner by herself in the nearly empty pub on Cybertron. It was dark outside and dim indoors, and she was almost unbearably lonely. Days were alright, not too bad, but nights were miserable. When it was daytime, she could walk the streets and watch what other Bots did, or she could look for someplace to live. But when night came, she had to be careful and stay hidden from Cons. She had found a hidden place to spend the night, but it was too small to do much in. She really couldn't do anything in it except cry herself into recharge. She wanted to stay here and watch the other Bots talk with each other, but it was getting late so they were mostly gone.

The few that were still there would start to leave soon. They would go to their own homes. They were probably fallen down houses with half walls and half roofs, but at least they were homes. She didn't have that. The lights brightened in the pub so the keeper could see how many Bots were still there. Only about four or five besides Ari were still there.

When the Bots noticed the light, they all seemed to sigh more or less and look to their Energon cubes to see how much they had left. Most of them were nearly finished. Ari didn't look, for she didn't have cube. The keeper came over.

"You getting anything before you go?" He asked but did not seem to care.

She shook her head. She didn't have any currency. Not many Bots had a lot of currency, but even the ones who had the least had more than she did. He gave her a tired glance and went away to clean an empty table. She knew she wouldn't be staying much longer. The keeper would soon be closing the pub so he could go home.

She would have to leave.

She couldn't really call her hiding place a home. There was nothing there, no belongings, nothing to make her smile, no-one there for her. She wished she did have someone. She watched as an older mech came to the door of the pub and one of the young femmes slowly pulled away from her mech-friend with a pout.

Ari pouted herself as she watched, not because she wanted a mech-friend, but because she wanted someone to come for her. Then a teardrop fell on her table, and she looked away.

She'd had a guardian at time when she was little. She hadn't him seen for ages, though. She knew there was a brutal war going on… and she wondered if he had been killed by one of the factions. If not, then he was probably stationed galaxies away. She missed him. She wished he would come for her.

She knew he wasn't coming, but she still hoped that maybe he would come. She didn't want to go back to her hiding place. She didn't want that to be her place of residence. 'Where do you live, Aria-Spark?' 'I live under some corrugated metal near the bombed out library.' She didn't want that to be her story. She wanted a different place.

She lowered her optics as the keeper came back over towards her. "I'm starting to lock things up now." He told her. She looked up and saw that only two of the other Bots were still there.

She nodded. "I'll go soon." She said softly. He left to finish the tables. She looked at her table. It was clean, shiny. In the dark, she could almost see her reflection in it; there was a blurry colored shadow of her. It was a soft pink, and blue optics glowed dimly. The blurry little door-wings that it reflected hung low, dropping sadly. And there were teardrops resting on top of the shadow. She moved her hand and smudged the teardrops away.

The keeper was back, this time he was holding his table-cleaning cloth. "I need to clean this table now." He said.

She nodded silently then slipped across the cushion and got up from the table. She stood, looking at it, not wanting to leave. She wanted…

"Waiting for someone?" the keeper asked.

She couldn't bring herself to give the answer that cried that nobody cared for her.

"You can wait inside the door if you like." The keeper said dully, not sure how to interpret her silence.

She crept to the door and stood there while he turned to the table. It was colder by the door, and she could see out the smudged window that the few street lamps that still worked were dimmed by smoke. She heard the keeper checking the locks on the storage room. She had to go before he made her go.

She had to finish her time at the pub. That day was over. She slipped out the door and into the smoky, cold night air. She started to trudge slowly down the street, shuffling her feet a little as she stayed close to buildings. She pretended that the buildings were her friends; she didn't want to be walking alone. She wanted… she knew what she wanted. She wanted her guardian, or even just a guardian to be there with her, walking with her, looking after her.

A guardian would tuck her into a bed, and give her some Energon in the morning, and give her a hug when she needed it most. She needed one right now, almost more than anything. She was cold and lonely. And she was scared, too. Last night two Seekers had approached her and frightened her. They wouldn't have if she'd had a guardian. Her guardian would have taken her safely home.

She was sad and miserable, lonely.

She stopped and stood under a lamp. This was the lamp that marked the street where she had her hiding place. The lamp had been working yesterday, but now it was broken, smashed into a hundred pieces. '_Shattered Lamp Street,_' Ari thought to herself sadly. It wasn't where she wanted to live.

She started towards her hiding place, but then she stopped as she realized that she didn't have to live there.

Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, had found another planet to live on. A planet was a huge move, a move across galaxies. If one Bot could make a move across galaxies, she could make a move from one city to another. She pulled out her little media player and listened to the broadcast that the Prime had sent out some time ago.

She stood as still as a statue as she listened to the final words. "…_I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars. We are here. We are waiting._" She hadn't listened to this message for a long time, and she'd forgotten the final words. Now, suddenly, she realized that the Prime was calling for refugees to come join his little team.

She looked down at herself. She was small, probably too little to be of any use on the battlefield, but she had a little medical knowledge. Medics were always wanted. It would be scary, frightening...

She looked back at her media device. _We are here. We are waiting_. Waiting… for her? Maybe not for her in particular, but for anyone who would come. She would go. She would go ask to join Prime's refugees. There would be somebody among them who would take to her and look after her. Somebody would care for her.

She quickly went to her little hiding place and crawled in. Being careful to not hit her head on the low roof, she took out a small cube half-full of Energon and finished it. Gone. She sighed softly as the hunger pains in her tank faded. It was good now. She was done here.

She crawled out of her hiding place and left the piece of door open so that other Bots would know that they could hide there if they wanted. They were welcome to it. She wasn't coming back.

She was going to earth. She was going to start a new beginning.

Review please!

Some of you know who she is, right? If you've read my story _You Have Found a Home_, then you know her very well. ;)


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